Japan earthquake and tsunami of 2011also called Great Sendai Earthquake or Great Tōhoku Earthquakesevere earthquake that occurred on March 11, 2011, off the northeastern coast of Honshu, Japan’s main island, causing widespread damage on land and initiating a tsunami that devastated many coastal areas of the country, most notably in the Tōhoku region (northeastern Honshu). The tsunami also instigated a major nuclear accident at a power station along the coast.

The earthquake and tsunami

The magnitude-9.0 earthquake struck at 2:46 PM. (The early estimate of magnitude 8.9 was later revised upward.) The epicentre was located some 80 miles (130 km) east of the city of Sendai, Miyagi prefecture, and the focus occurred at a depth of 18.6 miles (about 30 km) below the floor of the western Pacific Ocean. The earthquake was caused by the rupture of a stretch of the subduction zone associated with the Japan Trench, which separates the Eurasian Plate from the subducting Pacific Plate. (Some geologists argue that this portion of the Eurasian Plate is actually a fragment of the North American Plate called the Okhotsk microplate.) A part of the subduction zone measuring approximately 190 miles (300 km) long by 95 miles (150 km) wide lurched about 65 by as much as 164 feet (20 50 metres) to the east-southeast and thrusted upward by about 100–130 33 feet (30–40 10 metres). The March 11 temblor was felt as far away as Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Russia; Kao-hsiung, Taiwan; and Beijing, China. It was preceded by several foreshocks, including a magnitude-7.2 event centred approximately 25 miles (40 km) away from the epicentre of the main quake. Hundreds of aftershocks, dozens of magnitude 6.0 or greater and two of magnitude 7.0 or greater, followed in the days and weeks after the main quake. The March 11 earthquake was the strongest to strike the region since the beginning of record keeping in the late 19th century, and it is considered to be one of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded.

The sudden horizontal and vertical thrusting of the Pacific Plate, which has been slowly advancing under the Eurasian Plate near Japan, displaced the water above and spawned a series of highly destructive tsunami waves. A wave measuring some 33 feet (10 metres) high inundated the coast and flooded parts of the city of Sendai, including its airport and the surrounding countryside. According to some reports, one wave penetrated some 6 miles (10 km) inland after causing the Natori River, which separates Sendai from the city of Natori to the south, to overflow. Damaging tsunami waves struck the coasts of Iwate prefecture, just north of Miyagi prefecture, and Fukushima, Ibaraki, and Chiba, the prefectures extending along the Pacific coast south of Miyagi. In addition to Sendai, other communities hard hit by the tsunami included Kamaishi and Miyako in Iwate; Ishinomaki, Kesennuma, and Shiogama in Miyagi; and Kitaibaraki and Hitachinaka in Ibaraki. As the floodwaters retreated back to the sea, they carried with them enormous quantities of debris, as well as thousands of victims caught in the deluge. Large stretches of land also were left submerged under seawater, particularly in lower-lying areas.

The earthquake triggered tsunami warnings throughout the Pacific basin. The tsunami raced outward from the epicentre at speeds that approached about 500 miles (800 km) per hour. It generated waves 11 to 12 feet (3.3 to 3.6 metres) high along the coasts of Kauai and Hawaii in the Hawaiian Islands chain and 5-foot (1.5-metre) waves along the island of Shemya in the Aleutian Islands chain. Several hours later 9-foot (2.7-metre) tsunami waves struck the coasts of California and Oregon in North America. Finally, some 18 hours after the quake, waves roughly 1 foot (0.3 metre) high reached the coast of Antarctica and caused a portion of the Sulzberger Ice Shelf to break off its outer edge.

Aftermath of the disaster

Casualties and property damage

Initial reports of casualties following the tsunami put the death toll in the hundreds, with hundreds more missing. That number in both categories increased dramatically in the following days as the extent of the devastation—especially in coastal areas—became known and rescue operations got under way. Within two weeks of the disaster, the official count of deaths had exceeded 10,000; more than one and a half times that number were still listed as missing and presumed dead. By then it was evident that the earthquake and tsunami had produced one of the deadliest natural disasters in Japanese history, rivaling the major earthquake and tsunami that had occurred off the coast of Iwate prefecture in June 1896. As the search for victims continued, the official count of those confirmed dead or still missing rose to about 28,500. However, as more people thought to be missing were found to be alive, that figure began to drop; by autumn the end of the year it had been reduced to fewer than 20,000some 19,300.

Most of those killed were victims of the tsunami waves. Coastal cities and towns as well as vast areas of farmland in the tsunami’s path were inundated by swirling waters that swept enormous quantities of houses, boats, cars, trucks, and other debris along with them. As the extent of the destruction became known, it became clear how many thousands of people were missing—including, in some cases, half or more of a locality’s population. Among those who initially were unaccounted for were people on a ship that was washed away by the tsunami and passengers on several trains reported as missing in Iwate and Miyagi prefectures. The ship was later found (and the people on board rescued), and all trains were located as well.

Although much of the destruction was caused by the tsunami waves along Japan’s Pacific coastline, the earthquake was responsible for considerable damage over a wide area. Notable were fires in several cities, including a petrochemical plant in Sendai, a portion of the city of Kesennuma in Miyagi prefecture, northeast of Sendai, and an oil refinery at Ichihara in Chiba prefecture, near Tokyo. In Fukushima, Ibaraki, and Chiba prefectures thousands of homes were completely or partially destroyed by the temblor and aftershocks. Infrastructure also was heavily affected throughout eastern Tōhoku, as roads and rail lines were damaged, electric power was knocked out, and water and sewerage systems were disrupted. In Fukushima a dam burst close to the prefectural capital of Fukushima city.

Northern Japan’s nuclear emergency

Of significant concern following the main shock and tsunami was the status of several nuclear power stations in the Tōhoku region. The reactors at the three nuclear power plants closest to the quake’s epicentre were shut down automatically following the temblor, which also cut the main power to those plants and their cooling systems. However, inundation by the tsunami waves damaged the backup generators at some of those plants, most notably at the Fukushima Daiichi (“Number One”) plant, situated along the Pacific coast in northeastern Fukushima prefecture about 60 miles (100 km) south of Sendai. With power gone, the cooling systems failed in three reactors within the first few days of the disaster, and their cores subsequently overheated, leading to partial meltdowns of the fuel rods. (Some plant workers, however, attributed at least one partial meltdown to coolant-pipe bursts caused by the earthquake’s ground vibrations.) Melted material fell to the bottom of the containment vessels in reactors 1 and 2 and burned sizable holes through the floor of each vessel, which partially exposed the nuclear material in the cores. Explosions resulting from the buildup of pressurized hydrogen gas in the outer containment buildings enclosing reactors 1, 2, and 3, along with a fire touched off by rising temperatures in spent fuel rods stored in reactor 4, led to the release of significant levels of radiation from the facility in the days and weeks following the earthquake. Workers sought to cool and stabilize the damaged reactors by pumping seawater and boric acid into them.

Because of concerns over possible radiation exposure, Japanese officials established an 18-mile (30-km) no-fly zone around the facility, and an area of 12.5 miles (20 km) around the plant was evacuated. The evacuation zone was later extended to the 18-mile no-fly radius, within which residents were asked to leave or remain indoors. The appearance of increased levels of radiation in some local food and water supplies prompted officials in Japan and overseas to issue warnings about their consumption. At the end of March, seawater near the Daiichi facility was discovered to have been contaminated with high levels of radioactive iodine-131. The contamination stemmed from the exposure of pumped-in seawater to radiation inside the facility; this water later leaked into the ocean through cracks in water-filled trenches and tunnels between the facility and the ocean.

In mid-April Japanese nuclear regulators elevated the severity level of the nuclear emergency at the Fukushima Daiichi facility from 5 to 7—the highest level on the scale created by the International Atomic Energy Agency—placing the Fukushima accident in the same category as the Chernobyl accident, which had occurred in the Soviet Union in 1986. Several months after the Fukushima disaster, radiation levels remained high in the evacuation zone, and government officials remarked that the area may be uninhabitable for decades. However, they also announced that radiation levels had declined in five towns located just beyond the original 12.5-mile evacuation zone; these levels had become low enough that government officials felt comfortable allowing residents to return to their homes. In December Japanese Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko declared the facility stable after the cold shutdown of the reactors was completed.

Relief efforts

In the first hours after the earthquake, Japanese Prime Minister Kan Naoto moved to set up an emergency command centre in Tokyo, and a large number of rescue workers and some 100,000 members of the Japanese Self-Defense Force were rapidly mobilized to deal with the crisis. In addition, the Japanese government requested that U.S. military personnel stationed in the country be available to help in relief efforts, and a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier was dispatched to the area. Several countries, including Australia, China, India, New Zealand, South Korea, and the United States, sent search-and-rescue teams, and dozens of other countries and major international relief organizations such as the Red Cross and Red Crescent pledged financial and material support to Japan. In addition, a large number of private and nongovernmental organizations within Japan and worldwide soon established relief funds to aid victims and assist with rescue and recovery efforts.

The rescue work itself was hampered initially by the difficulty in getting personnel and supplies to the devastation zone; compounding the difficulty were periods of inclement weather that curtailed air operations. Workers in the disaster zones then faced widespread seas of destruction: vast areas, even whole towns and cities, had been washed away or covered by great piles of mud and debris. Although some people were rescued from the rubble in the first several days following the main shock and tsunami, most of the relief work involved the recovery of bodies, including hundreds that began washing ashore in several areas after having been swept out to sea.

In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, several hundred thousand people were in shelters, often with limited or negligible supplies of food or water, and tens of thousands more remained stranded and isolated in the worst-hit areas as rescuers worked to reach them. Within days the number of displaced people in the Fukushima area grew as the situation with the nuclear reactors on the coast deteriorated and people left the quarantined area. Gradually many people were able to find other places to stay in the Tōhoku area, or they relocated to other parts of the country; some quarter million people were still in hundreds of shelters in the region two weeks after the quake, but in the ensuing months after the disaster that number gradually was reduced by more than two-thirds. Tens of thousands of these displaced residents were living in some 50,000 prefabricated temporary housing units that had been set up in Sendai and other tsunami-damaged locations.

In the weeks following the disaster, much of northern Honshu’s transportation and services infrastructure was at least partially restored, and repairs continued until train lines and major highways were again fully operational. However, the region’s power supply continued to be affected by the ongoing situation at the Fukushima plant, resulting in temporary power outages and rolling blackouts. The loss of businesses and factories from earthquake and tsunami damage, as well as the uncertainties surrounding the power supply, severely reduced the region’s post-disaster manufacturing output. Industries most affected included those producing semiconductors and other high-technology items and automobiles.

Related articles: affected areas

For coverage of some of the places affected by the earthquake and tsunami, see the following Britannica articles: